Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

neowin.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 235 posts

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#171

Post by guard-of-terra »

Xcelerate wrote: post #133

I realize mine is a pretty unpopular opinion on Hacker News, but I probably would not hire anyone who thinks pirating software is morally acceptable. The way I see it, any argument for piracy is simply rationalization. The point is that someone has invested a lot of time and money into creating something and they are offering the usage of that software for a price. If you use it without paying that price, then you ar…

It's your right to not hire anyone you don't like, but then it's our right to thing you're stupid. You are. And then you are spoiled. And invested too much into the whole "I'm creating something so great that I'm entitled" school of thought.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#172

Post by guard-of-terra »

javert wrote: post #109

I’m just saying that it’s not all black and white. It is black and white. It's theft. The issue of whether you shold steal in certain conditions is a separate issue, as discussed some in the article. But it is black and white, it's theft.

There is a lot of accepted theft in our society. For example, American settlers stole all the land from Native Americans. Might as well direct your anger at that.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#173

Post by Xcelerate »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #171
Xcelerate wrote: post #133

I realize mine is a pretty unpopular opinion on Hacker News, but I probably would not hire anyone who thinks pirating software is morally acceptable. The way I see it, any argument for piracy is simply rationalization. The point is that someone has invested a lot of time and money into creating something and they are offering the usage of that software for a price. If you use it without paying that price, then you ar…

It's your right to not hire anyone you don't like, but then it's our right to thing you're stupid. You are. And then you are spoiled. And invested too much into the whole "I'm creating something so great that I'm entitled" school of thought.

> it's our right to thing you're stupid

Likewise.

Instead of ad hominem attacks, explain to me why exactly you think I am spoiled. I expect better replies from Hacker News than something like Reddit, and yours fails to meet such a standard. I appreciate constructive, well thought-out criticism to my arguments, but your post demonstrates nothing of the sort.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#174

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

niyazpk wrote: post #125
TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the longest time, cracking Photoshop was a 1 byte change. In effect, there was a conditional JMP. You patch the address of the good JMP to the bad conditional side. Voila: enter a good or bad serial, and it works. A bunch of us under +Fravia came to an agreement that this simplicity was intentional. I think we all can come to the conclusion to why that is... As to your supposition that no amount of 'junk' would s…

I was under the [naive] impression that _every_ security check finally boils down to one JMP statement. Can you please explain what makes other programs more difficult to crack than flipping the one JMP location?

Just read this:

http://71.6.196.237/fravia/progcor.htm

It's down in the rabbit hole for you :P

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#175

Post by galadriel »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #154
markokocic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. I even remember that the prices for legal Microsoft software in one of those "developing nations" were higher than prices in the USA. And it's not only Microsoft, some other companies (Audodesk, Adobe, Apple) also keep higher prices and worse quality in some of poor countries than in the USA. It's kinda like they try to punish people that want to buy their software legally. For me, it's an easy decisi…

Wouldn't the issue be that if they sold Windows for say $10 in china that westerners could just import it for $10 + shipping and then install language packs once they had it?

There are usually region restricted DRM trying to stop this from happening. For example, a lot of digital distribution gaming companies (like Steam) have cheaper prices of games in Russia compared to US. So there are all kinds of websites that will sell a Russian key and Russian proxy service so that one can get game for cheap. OTOH, the distributors try to monitor and keep disabling accounts if they find that region restricted games are being played.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#176

Post by jlgreco »

paulhauggis wrote: post #162
jlgreco wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cannot make spending $99 dollars more appealing to your target audience than going to the pirate bay and messing around with sketchy-ass cracks, then frankly you just suck at selling software and really have little business doing it. The people actually in the market for $99 dollar software in the first are not going to do all that nonsense (unless you have done something terribly wrong with your legitimate di…

"If you cannot make spending $99 dollars more appealing to your target audience than going to the pirate bay and messing around with sketchy-ass cracks, then frankly you just suck at selling software and really have little business doing it." So..I should be forced to compete with someone making an exact copy of my software and giving it out for free? Does this make any sense to you? Should hackernews.com be forced t…

I really have no idea what you are on about. You aren't competing with somebody giving your software away for free. They are giving it to a completely separate audience. Those people were never going to be your customers. If you lose customers to it, then you have failed to make them your customers in the first place.

You seem to think that I am defending pirating; offering up a moral justification of sorts. I am not. I am not interested in the slightest in the morality of the topic, one way or the other. I offer them no moral defence, nor do I morally condemn them. Rather I am telling you that you should not get bent out of shape over it.

And for the record, despite your insinuation, I pirate neither software, nor music, nor movies, nor whatever else there is to pirate. Why would I?

I think you are taking my response too personally for some reason.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#177

Post by pyre »

Strom wrote: post #161
pyre wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes pre-release sources are rewarded financially. I have no idea where the money comes from[1], though. This was the case for the Academy member that was busted a while back. IIRC, he was just selling his DVD screeners to pirate groups. [1]: I get that the group pays for it, but what the source of the money is, I don't know. Are people just sinking money into for the 'props' of being first? Is there a greater f…

Being first, or otherwise an interesting group means that FTP administrators want you to fill their servers with your releases. As a return, the group gets a bunch of unlimited use "leech accounts" to these FTP servers. A lot of money enters the scene via people who directly or indirectly buy "leech accounts" from these groups. These unlimited use FTP accounts give the buyer a very convenient way to acquire everythin…

So the FTP administrators are some sort of neutral ground, in that they distribute releases from a variety of groups. They are sort of the Warez Scene hosting providers?

What are the incentives? Are these just people that have cheap access to fat connections, so the cost of running the FTP site is minimal? The ability to create 'leech accounts' for friends/family so long as they aren't sold (or is this also taboo)? Is unlimited personal access enough of an incentive?

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#179

Post by demetrius »

robryan wrote: post #153
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you try to stop preemptively dismissing other people. Calling it "immoral" doesn't mean anything unless you define morality and that's a loaded gun. The point is that legally, there is a distinction between depriving others of property and infringing on a copyright. If they're different crimes, they're treated differently, addressed differently, etc... how on Earth is it not relevant to discuss?

Do we need to define them as moral or immoral though? They are different crimes but both crimes currently.

Crime is something defined by law. Law can get wrong, and very often does.

I live in a country where it’s forbidden to organise people to jog in the park together via social network (unless you get appropriate permission, lol). Is such a 'crime' immoral?

If you think your country’s laws are always correct, think again.

There are even cases when what has been considered a crime now is considered a bravery. For example, Lithuanian book smugglers were commiting a crime, but now they are considered to have been doing the right thing.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#180

Post by napoleond »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #170
napoleond wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really interesting, thank you. Could you recommend any good books about the economics of information as you've described it here?

I don't know of any good books on the subject. I have been studying the ideas since 1995 when I joined a startup called GolfWeb which was publishing a magazine about Golf on the Web. And the question came up "What is this worth?" and "Would people subscribe?" That lead to some interesting investigations into the how people value things. Then in the late 90's I was talking with a friend who was getting an MBA at Berke…

It's a book that needs to be written; I hope you write it. (And then... how would you price it? ;) ) In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to dump this out--it's enormously appreciated and has given me lots to think about.
Post reply on HN